School equipment moved back into Mintonye Elementary

TIPPECANOE COUNTY, Ind. (WLFI) – Repair work on Mintonye Elementary School is almost finished after a tornado damaged the school eight months ago.

Boxes full of school supplies were loaded onto trucks last November after an F3 tornado hit Mintonye. Now, those boxes are moving back into the school.

“I’m hoping that probably in another week or so we should be mostly completed with the move back,” Tippecanoe School Corporation buildings and grounds director Steven Tobias said.

Tobias said crews have been working for nearly eight months to repair the damage.

“The roof has been totally replaced, all the HVC equipment on top of the roof has been replaced, and then we got into some of the cosmetic things that were damaged inside the classrooms,” Tobias said about the repairs.

In just one month, students will return to their classrooms for the first time since the tornado. Classrooms that were ripped apart that day now look brand new.

“Every classroom here now has a new ceiling grid, a new ceiling, new lights, new flooring and there has been some additional shoring of the north where the structure was weakened due to the tornado,” Tobias said.

He said it’s been a long process, but bringing back the school supplies is the final missing piece.

“It gives closure to the event and in a lot of ways things will be better than they were,” Tobias said.